


i'm the shell of a girl i used to know well

by Zephyroh



Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: F/F, Trimberly week day 2, because Kimberly Hart has depression and i have a lot of feelings about that, just some angst, trimberly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 09:25:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11666295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zephyroh/pseuds/Zephyroh
Summary: There were many things Trini came to know about Kimberly Hart for the past few weeks – ever since that night in the mine when their life turned upside down.Kimberly Hart wore a lot of tank tops, loved cheesy jokes, could eat her weight in chicken nuggets while gushing about how healthy detox water and smoothies were and how the team should definitely drink more of it, she knew all the lyrics to every Disney movie ever, danced whenever she was happy, and swore like a sailor when she drove. Trini couldn’t exactly remember when she started picking up on those little things, but watching Kimberly and absorbing little details about her became a second nature. [...]And Kimberly Hart was a happy drunk, Trini told herself again as she watched the slouched silhouette of her friend, sitting at the edge of the cliff she once threw her off, head down and a bottle of tequila at her side.The sentence ran through her head again and again but the yellow ranger could not reconcile it with the sight in front of her.





	i'm the shell of a girl i used to know well

**Author's Note:**

> un beta'd because i'm a lazy fuck  
> @ zephyroh on tumblr and twitter

There were many things Trini came to know about Kimberly Hart for the past few weeks – ever since that night in the mine when their life turned upside down.

Kimberly Hart wore a lot of tank tops, loved cheesy jokes, could eat her weight in chicken nuggets while gushing about how healthy detox water and smoothies were and how the team should definitely drink more of it, she knew all the lyrics to every Disney movie ever, danced whenever she was happy, and swore like a sailor when she drove. Trini couldn’t exactly remember when she started picking up on those little things, but watching Kimberly and absorbing little details about her became a second nature.

Kimberly Hart was also a happy drunk. She’d constantly hug her teammates after two beers, sing really loudly and purposefully out of tune after the fourth, and dance clumsily her heart out around the bonfire by the fifth.

Kimberly Hart was a breath of fresh air in the morning when she’d pick Trini up for school with coffee and donuts, going as far as putting metal music to keep her grumpy friend content.

Kimberly Hart cheerfully made way too much pancakes every Sundays to bring them to Zack and her mom, and learned to play chess –  vowing she’d beat Ms. Taylor one day.

Kimberly Hart bought twenty oversized stuff animals for Billy to blow up – ‘ _safer that the lunchbox  in your locker_ ’ she had merely stated with a grin – in the forest, making bets about how far the explosion would bring the destroyed piece of fabric and congratulating the boy every time he’d break his record.

Kimberly Hart taught Jason how to sew with the patience of an angel, never once complaining about the boy lack of agility in his finger, when she noticed he kept wearing tore down clothes and finally got him to admit he didn’t have enough money to buy new one – so she helped him fix them.

If Billy was the heart, Kimberly was the joy of the team.

And Kimberly Hart was a happy drunk, Trini told herself again as she watched the slouched silhouette of her friend, sitting at the edge of the cliff she once threw her off, head down and a bottle of tequila at her side.

The sentence ran through her head again and again but the yellow ranger could not reconcile it with the sight in front of her.

The moon’s light was diffused, heavy clouds shielding its beauty. Stars were nowhere to be seen through the dark coat in the sky. The cold wind was starting to slither into Trini’s jacket and she had to suppress the shiver threatening to run through her body.

But the thing that made her heart heavy was the curled-up form of Kimberly Hart, clinging to a bottle, arms around her legs and periodically taking a sip from the half-emptied bottle of hard liquor.

“It’s gonna rain soon, you should probably head home.”

Trini’s voice cut through the night and was only met with silence. The witty comeback Trini expected never came, and she felt a pang in her heart.

Trini liked silence. She was accustomed to it. She felt safe in it. There were nights where she and Kimberly would just hang out in her room or in the spaceship, never saying a word to each other but merely enjoyed each other presence in comfortable silence. This time was different. This time Trini would give anything to stop it.

She eyed the pink ranger as she sat down next to her, letting her feet hang in the void of the cliff under her. Kim’s chin was resting against her knees, her arms wrapped about her legs, and she was starting at the darkness under her. She did not make a move to acknowledge the presence of Trini, which made the girl even more worried.

This behaviour was so terribly unlike Kim.

She could handle excited Kim, drunk Kim, sick Kim, tired Kim, flirty Kim – even if she’d never admit to herself it was flirting – even angry Kim. But this… she had never seen her friend in this state, and the fact that she had no idea what to do terrified her even more.

So, she just stared in silence, studying the features of Kim’s face, barely lit by the moonlight, and an uneasy feeling settled in her stomach when she realized she couldn’t read her expression. That was another thing about Kimberly Hart – she wore her feelings on her face. She was an open book. If she was confused, flustered, frustrated or angry, you’d know it right away. But at this moment, she was closed off and Trini hated it.

When the pink ranger made a move to take a swing from the bottle again, Trini’s reflex kicked it, snatching the bottle from her friend hand, hoping to get a reaction.  Kim’s arm stopped mid-air for a second, just to come back around her leg again, her eyes still fixated on the darkness below.

Trini wanted to yell at her to look at her, to speak to her, to say or do anything. She wanted to grab her head to look into Kim’s eyes and maybe she’s know what was going on in the girl’s mind.

She never thought she’d hate silence as much as she did right now.

As her mind was running trying to think about something other that “ _Are you alright?” –_ because Trini would rather jump off that cliff than to say something as ridiculous as this – Kim finally spoke up. It was barely a whisper and Trini thanked her enhanced superhero senses for catching it. With a broken voice and a slurred speech – betraying how much she had been drinking – Kim asked:

“What did you think about when we almost died, before the megazord?”

Trini was definitely not expecting that, but it did give an insight as to why her friend was such in a sorry state.

Despite the happy ending, the crowd cheering, the relief of seeing Rita’s form disappearing in the sky, the less gleeful memories of that day were still engraved in the ranger’s mind.

The smell of the smoke invading her cockpit.

The sound of crushed metal.

Jason’s distorted voice over the speaker.

_“Nobody dies alone.”_

The feeling of falling as the ground ceded below her zord.

“My family mostly.”, Trini finally answered with a knotted throat. “I thought about how I’d miss my brother’s game on Saturday and how my mom would be pissed. I thought that I would never hear my father playing guitar again. I thought about the smell of my mother’s cooking on the weekends. How I never told her that I loved her cooking and I wished she’s teach me. About I wouldn’t see my brothers grow up and I’d never get to embarrass them in front of their friends. About how I stole my dad’s boots and I’d never get to give them back to him. About-“

Trini couldn’t finish her sentence as a sob erupted from her throat, catching her by surprise. She hadn’t noticed the tears running down her cheeks when she was speaking. She wiped the tears with her sleeve, sniffing ungracefully.

When she looked back at Kim, the girl was wearing a sad smile and her eyes were shining with unshed tears. And when she spoke again, she sounded even more broken than before, which Trini didn’t think was even possible.

“I didn’t think about anything.”

The words felt like a stone thrown into a pound. Hard. Cold. Sinking.

Trini kept quiet, waiting for the pink ranger to elaborate. Kim swallowed hard and let out an emotionless chuckle.

“My mind just went blank. I just watched as Goldar was crushing my zord and I didn’t think about anything. The night after we beat Rita, when everything was over, I went home to a note of my parents saying they were out of town. And I just sat there, in the empty house I’m now used to, thinking about how I should have _thought_ about something, I should have _felt_ something, but I didn’t.

You know, Amanda called me heartless after the meeting with the principal, and as I was sitting on my couch telling myself I should have felt something, I wondered if maybe she was right. I got so used to lying, to everyone, about anything. To my parent about how happy I was, to my friends about how much fun they were, the teachers about what I wanted to do in life. Maybe I faked too much, and now I can’t actually be genuine. Maybe I’m just pretending all the time, because when I come home alone and I try to sleep, I just feel so… _empty_.”

This time Trini didn’t even try to cover her tears, letting them run down freely on her cheeks as she watched the broken girl in front of her.

Ironically, she wished she was Kim at this precise moment because she was confident Kim would know what to say to make her feel better if the role were reversed. Kim always knew. When Trini would go quiet – too quiet, the kind when she was shutting down and her walls were coming up – because something was off, when Jason would get in a fight with his father, when Zack would suffocate some night in his trailer, when Billy would get overwhelmed at school, Kim somehow always knew, and was always there – and it downright killed Trini to find out that she couldn’t return the favour for her.

She wished she could express how good it felt to see Kim pop up at her window the night, with a mischievous smile and a box of donuts. How light she felt when Kim let her vent about her mother, never once judging anything Trini said. How safe Kim made her feel when the nightmares of Rita came at night and she had the pink ranger’s arms around her, stroking her back until she fell asleep.

She wished she could talk to Kim and make her understand how Trini saw her, how she felt about her, how much she meant to her and their friends.

But Trini was never a talker.

So, she did the first thing that came into her mind.

As a small rock hit Kimberly right between the eyes with a muffled thud, falling on the girl’s lap, Kim looked at Trini in the eyes for the first time – and Trini had to force herself not to smile smugly because it was definitely not the moment, but she felt pride at the bewildered look on Kim’s face. She finally could read her again.

“Did you just throw a rock at me?”. The genuine disbelief in Kim’s voice almost made Trini laugh.

“Well, the only other thing available was the bottle, and that would have hurt much more I think.”, Trini answered as a matter-of-factly, shrugging lightly.

Kim opened her mouth to close it again a few seconds later. Then opened it again. She threw her hands in the air in a motion clearly asking “ _What is wrong with you?”_

“If you’re gonna keep talking shit like that, I’m gonna keep throwing rocks at you.”, Trini merely stated as an explanation, flicking another one that hit Kim’s nose.

Kim’s eyes softened and when Trini looked in her eyes again, she swore she could drown into those brown pupils, so full of emotions – and Trini asked herself how on earth this girl could believe she was heartless.

“There’s no ‘normal’ reaction to almost dying. You’re not ‘supposed’ to think anything, to feel anything in particular. That goes for life in general. You just live and feel what you feel, and fuck what everyone else has to say about that. You’re not obligated to love your parents. You’re not obligated to have fun. You’re not obligated to be alright if you’re not. You feel what you feel and you just… work with that.”

Trini cursed herself at the word vomit coming out of her mouth. She was just desperately trying to make Kim feel like she’s was going to be alright. That she didn’t have to pretend. That she wasn’t alone.

But Trini was never a talker.

Instead she never tore her eyes away from Kim, hoping that she could express what she wanted to say with her eyes despite her lack of eloquence.

Trini was also not much of a feelings girl. She never knew quite how to handle them, and most of the time she’d just bury them behind her wall to deal with them later – or just not at all.

So, when Kimberly Hart tackled her to the ground, throwing her arms around her, gripping her jacket like her life depended on it, her brain sort of short-circuited.  She landed on her back, letting out a small groan, lying still with her arms at her side while she processed the way Kim was weighting on her, the way the girl’s hair was tickling her nose and how she smelled really good, the way Kim’s chest was pressing against hers, and the way the girl’s body between her legs made her stomach feel like she was on a roller-coaster – and suddenly she wasn’t cold at all anymore.

She finally closed her arms around Kim’s shoulders, squeezing as hard as she could and whispered against the pink’s ranger temple.

“I got you.”

Tears damped Trini’s shirt, and it wasn’t hers this time.

Pressing her face against the crook of Trini’s neck, Kim mumbled against the shorter girl’s skin.

“That’s Jason’s line for Billy.” Trini couldn’t hold back her laugh at the unexpected answer.

As she sat up, still holding Kim against her, she steadied her grip around the girl.

“You’re right, we should have our own thing.”, she breathed into Kim’s ear – and she felt a shiver shaking the girl’s body against her. “And I think I have an idea.”

Before Kim could register was what happening – having noticed the playful tone in Trini’s voice – the yellow ranger pulled them over the edge of the cliff, tangling their bodies together as they hit the water.


End file.
